There are thousands of different ways to start your online community. Here are 20 ideas.
- E-mail list. e-mail 5 people who share an interest or buy your products. Introduce them to each other. Then gradually grow the newsgroup.
- Organise a coffee meeting. Invite 8 customers you know to meet for coffee. Next time invite 12 customers, then 15…then begin booking a venue.
- Advertise for members. State you want to state a community and advertise on your website for members. First come, first served.
- Within an existing community. If your customers are already part of a big community, develop a community within it. Then when you have built a few relationships, move across. Triiibes has several ‘spin-off’ communities.
- Find who should meet. Ask an influential person for 7 people they feel need to know each other. Then create the place for them to meet.
- Develop Authority. Become a visible member of the community, through participation, creating content and building relationships for 4 months. Then start your own.
- Contact provoked people. If 10 people are angry about a relevant issue on any forum/news/blog comments. Take the initiative to introduce them to each other and
- Use Facebook. Launch a controversial Facebook group, message people you know will be interested and watch it spread.
- Build and connect niches. Launch very tiny niche communities on Facebook/Flickr/LinkedIn, then connect them together under your community banner.
- Get a list from Customer Services. Ask customer services for anyone that’s complained recently. If they stuck with your business, invite them to be your community’s first members.
- Persuade a VIP to create it. Convince a VIP/known figure to launch an online community in your field. You work in the shadows to support them.
- Add members, then tell them. Register accounts for members, then invite them to join by e-mail. If they don’t claim their account in 5 days they will lose it.
- Automate it. Write a program that automatically e-mails anyone that mentions your company focus on Twitter and invites them to join.
- Use your current lists. Use your newsletter list, customer database, failed new business pitches, sales leads and any existing list to find who should join your community.
- Connect staff to customers. Introduce people who use the product to the key staff member responsible for it. Do this often, then encourage the customer to invite friends.
- Ask Questions. Ask tough questions on LinkedIn/Yahoo answers about the industry, then invite the people with the best answers to join your community.
- Invite just 1 member. Invite 1 member, explain the last member to join has to invite the next. Sit back and grab a beer.
- Go door to door. Contact 5 people today, 5 tomorrow, and another 25 this week to join your community. Aim to increase your % ratio.
- Ask your sales team. Turn your sales team away from products and instead let them get people to join your community.
- Attach a free invite to every product. With every product you sell, attach a free invite/redeemable code to join your community.
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